Collaborating for a Cure: Sarcoma Clinical Trials Consortium
An ESUN Article
Editor's Note: This is another article in our ongoing "An Update on" series. These articles are intended to bring awareness to the sarcoma community of the goals, activities, and resources of various sarcoma advocacy organizations.
SARC (Sarcoma Alliance for Research through Collaboration) is a 501c3 non-for profit consortium established in 2003 by a group of clinician scientists with expertise in sarcoma and an interest and desire to collaborate to find better treatment options for patients with sarcoma. This core group of physicians noted that pooling of their intellectual and patient resources had the potential to improve their opportunity to efficiently identify the important bench and clinical trial research needed. Additionally, they recognized the importance of their collaborative participation in clinical research to rapidly accrue patients to clinical trials thus answering important questions related to understanding sarcomas and sarcoma treatment in a timely manner.
SARC activated its first clinical trial in November 2001. Six institutions participated in a study of Gleevec in 10 subtypes of sarcoma within one clinical trial. The population of patients for this study included patients with metastatic disease. The goal of the study was to explore and show interest and capability of this group to collaborate in the conduct of multicenter clinical trial protocol. This study accrued a total of 241 patients over 4 years. Today, 6 patients remain on study. The successful, timely accrual to this trial demonstrated the interest and ability of these physicians to collaborate.
Having demonstrated an ability to work together, SARC investigator’s agreed to study the combination of gemcitabine/docetaxel versus gemcitabine alone in a population of patients with metastatic soft tissue sarcoma ages 10 and greater. This study accrued 122 patients in 24 months with 8 institutions enrolling patients onto this study.
Given the initial success of these first 2 trials and interest of sarcoma experts from several leading sarcoma centers in the United States, Laurence Baker, Robert Benjamin, Robert Maki, Lee Helman, and George Demetri the founding directors of this organization agreed to formalize this collaboration. Laurence Baker, Professor of Internal Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of Michigan, explored infrastructure options for this collaboration on behalf of his sarcoma research colleagues. A non-for-profit independent consortium with no one institution having primary affiliation was the structure developed. In November 2003, SARC received 501c3 incorporation from the IRS. As an independent consortium, SARC does not favor allegiance with any institution but instead provides access to leadership roles and clinical trial development for all centers within the United States with expertise in sarcoma.
SARC is organized as a directorship, governed by a Board of Directors. The SARC Board of Directors has 15 members including physicians and other individuals with interest in sarcoma from personal experience and business experience (See Table 1). The Board meets biannually. An active Executive Committee meets monthly.
Laurence Baker, DO* |
University of Michigan |
Chair |
Denise Reinke, MS, NP* |
SARC |
President, COO |
George Demetri, MD* |
Dana Farber Cancer Center |
Secretary |
Shreyaskumar Patel, MD* |
MD Anderson Cancer Center |
Member |
Lee Helman, MD* |
National Institute of Health |
Consultant |
Robert Benjamin, MD* |
MD Anderson Cancer Center |
Consultant |
Deborah Buks, APR |
Ward Creative Communications |
Member |
Kapil Dhingra, MD |
Independent Consultant |
Member |
David Marsh |
Kristen Carr Foundation |
Member |
Tim McCormick |
Regional Rep – Nat’l Basketball Players Association |
Member |
Charles Nearburg |
Nearburg Producing Co |
Member |
Piero Picci, MD |
Instituti Ortopedici Rizzoli |
Member |
Gene Rosenfeld |
The Rosenfeld Family Foundation |
Member |
Lisa Tichenor |
WWWW Foundation |
Member |
Frits Van Coevorden, MD |
Netherlands Cancer Institute |
Member |
The clinical trial logistics are managed by the staff in the SARC operations office located in Ann Arbor, MI. The operations office staff includes the president and chief operating officer, 4 research project managers, finance manager, accountant and administrative support (See Figure 1). SARC operations office staff collectively bring years of experience in research from a variety of settings and effectively utilize their skills and expertise to facilitate the oversight of the conduct of SARC clinical research in accordance with government regulations.
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SARC meets biannually with all of it participating investigators. The spring meeting occurs on the Friday before ASCO while the fall meeting is the first day of CTOS.
To date, SARC has activated 10 clinical trials and accrued nearly a 1000 patients.
SARC has a website, www.sarctrials.org that contains educational information for patients, families and other physicians about sarcoma and sarcoma clinical trials.
Founding directors of SARC: Laurence Baker, in addition to his role as Chair, Board of Directors, SARC, is Professor of Internal Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of Michigan and Chairman of the Southwest Oncology Group (the largest NCI funded cooperative group). Robert Benjamin is Chairman and Professor for the Department of Sarcoma Medical Oncology and Medical Director of the Sarcoma Center at the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center. Robert Maki is Co-leader of the Adult Sarcoma Disease Management Team at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Lee Helman is the Scientific Director for Clinical Research, Center for Cancer Research of the National Cancer Institute. George Demetri is director of the Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, director of the Ludwig Center at Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, and executive director for Clinical and Translational Research at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.)
V6N1 ESUN Copyright © 2009 Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative.